An entire NHL season was canceled, but that hasn't prevented a lot of games from being played.

That is about to stop.

The owners no longer can threaten replacement players or an impasse strategy as a way to pressure the union into making a deal. And the union no longer can stall to force in-fighting and eventual compromise from owners.

The only way the NHL gets back on the ice is for a negotiated settlement between the two embattled sides. No matter what anyone says, there are no other options. There are no alternative measures.

Sharks President and CEO Greg Jamison attended last week's NHL Board of Governors meeting in New York. Afterward, he spouted the owners' mantra that they are exploring every alternative. When asked to list specifically what those alternatives are, Jamison simply didn't answer because he couldn't.

There is no other way out of this mess.

"At the end of the day, we want to get a deal with the players," Jamison said.

The players know it, and have known it all along. Owners first hoped locking out the players would cause enough of an economic hardship among the 700-odd-member union that an agreement could be struck in time to save at least half of last season.

The players drove right through every deadline because they knew it would be too difficult for ownership to play without them and they hoped ownership would cave, cringing at the thought of no revenues at all, even if it was only a half-season's worth.

For the owners to declare an impasse and open their doors to anyone who wants to play by their last offer, a federal court in the United States would have to side with the NHL, and four provincial courts in Canada where NHL teams reside -- Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia -- also would have to agree. How would it get done by October?

The mere thought of using replacement players -- never mind the question of whether it's legal in Montreal and Vancouver -- was not going to be embraced by fans in either country.

Both sides were right by doing wrong.

Is it possible a second NHL season could get canceled? Yes.

Probable? No.

Will the 2005-06 season start on time in October? Probably not.

What is the most likely end to a lockout, now in its 222nd day? Around Jan. 1, allowing for a half season to precede the Stanley Cup playoffs in the spring.

Is every hockey fan sick and tired of all this? Absolutely.

How will the fans react when the game returns? No one knows.

The framework for a possible deal is in place, and that's something that could not be said before February. The 11th-hour discussions that couldn't save the season did move the players off their "no-cap" stance.

Now, without oversimplifying their differences, at least both sides appear in the same universe, and the talk is of dollars and cents and not so much dueling concepts.

Unfortunately for the negotiations, most are seeing only the small picture. Because the players don't get paid in the summer anyway, there is no urgency to get a deal done until games are scheduled to start in the fall. That type of thinking led to a 103-day lockout and mid-January start to the 1995 season, the last time the agreement needed to be collectively bargained.

The big picture, however, suggests a deal gets done as soon as possible because it's only going to get harder to lure back fans, sponsors, networks, etc. The onetime annual $2.1 billion industry is probably looking at less than producing half of that now, maybe between only a quarter and one-third.

The games have stopped. Maybe, just maybe, there's a chance the real ones can again begin.